A while back I received a ridiculous email from a customer who had some pretty aggressive language for me. This was a while back, long enough that both of us have moved on but it makes me think about how emotional a process it can be when someone is about to spend a bunch of money on something like a car. Here’s the highlights.
“Mitch squirmed like a little fish out of water and backed out of his word,”
“…this is why car salesmen are known as the sleaziest people in the world.”
“…yeah, keep puff’n that magic dragon buddy. ”
“You people don’t have a clue how to be ethical and make a sale.”
“in this economy….you continue to play games and do business in such an unethical manner, real smart.
What made this worse, he distributed to every email address on our staff page along with who knows how many other recipients.
I understand I work in the car business and it has a reputation to overcome but man, I’ve never got an email like this! When you get an email like this I thought it was prudent to step back and try to see it from the other persons eyes. As I did that I reflected on what kind of “deal” I was giving him. I was angry because we where in the top 5 in ALL OF CANADA when it came to price, and of those 5 ours had the lowest KM’s. I was thinking to myself, this car is in perfect condition, it’s not dirty in any way and is a smoking deal. It dawned on me that it doesn’t matter. I lost because I let him get to this point and didn’t do enough at the start to make him believe in the credibility of our dealership and give him enough content to allow him and I to trust each other before things went awfully sideways.
The price of a purchase and the value you think your delivering has no value if the perception from the other side is one of getting bent over. This is obviously an example from the extreme end of the spectrum but I think it’s important not to simply dismiss crack pots and wing nuts with the wave of a hand and take the time to look for a take away.
I’ve decided we need to make sure that our stores have enough video content about us that we can easily share via an email that will set the stage before we get to a point of negotiation when emotions run high. Would this have helped in this situation – no chance, some people are more committed to finding the bad, then I have had time to prepare to show them the good.
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